Bernie Would be Doing Better

Today, Donald Trump would probably beat Hillary Clinton in a head-to-head matchup 538’s Nate Silver predicts. Ah but the election won’t be held today you reply. Correctomundo. When the election is actually conducted sayeth Silver, Clinton should squeeze out a 10-point win in the electoral college.

Nevertheless, her lead is remarkably slender. Under Silver’s polls-only forecast, Clinton now has just a 52.4% chance of taking the keys to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue from the current inhabitant in early 2017. Clinton does better in Silver’s polls-plus projection where her shot at winning is pegged at 60%. Some stats gurus may quibble with my reliance on Silver for the proposition that Trump is much closer to Clinton than he has any right to be. Sam Wang from the Princeton Election Consortium calls Clinton either a 60% or 80% favorite depending on whether you use a “random drift” or “Bayesian” analysis whatever they are. The problem with Wang is that in the last election cycle he was wrong and Silver was right.

The Princeton Consortium predicted the Democrats would maintain control of the Senate in 2014 while Silver correctly prognosticated a Republican victory. Others may argue that polls taken while the parties are holding their conventions are unreliable. Perhaps this is why Silver still projects Clinton to win. He has apparently discounted heavily recent national polls showing Trump with a substantial lead. The deadbeat Don is up by 7 points in today’s LA Times/USC survey. CNN and CBS both have Trump ahead as well albeit by smaller margins. Swing states seem to be following the trend. Nevada is now in Trump’s column according to one poll and Ohio is dead even according to another.

So it sure looks like CNN is going to have lots of viewers chewing off their fingernails while watching Jake Tapper’s five o-clock shadow steadily lengthen throughout the early morning November 9. If Hillary Clinton ultimately prevails, perhaps none of this will matter much. The reality-based community will breathe a sigh of relief that’ll last for a couple of months until she takes office and we start fighting again over whether she’s progressive enough or even a progressive at all.

The Democrats nominated Hillary Clinton for President last night mooting the question of whether Bernie Sanders would do better against Trump. But it is an interesting and important hypothetical nonetheless. Some Sanders supporters are reluctant to rally behind Clinton because they perceive the nominee, her backers, and the DNC as arrogantlydismissive of the Vermont Senator’s candidacy, his views, and his legions.

If, however, Sanders were indeed more popular than Clinton nationally, the Democratic ticket would be well-served to identify quickly and publicly strong pro-worker, pro-peace, and pro-environment progressives to serve as top advisers in the hoped-for Clinton administration. Concomitantly, Clinton’s base would have no legitimate basis for gloating over her “landslide” win the primaries and mocking Sanders voters as “immature crybabies” whose “demands” should be ignored.

So would Sanders be better positioned than Clinton to defeat Trump? It seems beyond peradventure that he would. For the first six months of this year, poll after poll told us this. Clinton’s biggest weakness then was that a majority of Americans do not believe her to be honest and trustworthy. Since she garnered the nomination, the number of Americans who say they believe her has fallen to a new low and she is now as unpopular or nearly so, as Trump himself.

In early March, I wrote Who is more electable Bernie or Hillary? Closing on an ambiguous note I suggested that while Sanders would likely garner significantly more votes nationally than Clinton in the general election Clinton might still be stronger. Her outsized support among senior voters and voters of color, I decided, could provide her with a significant advantage in critical Florida. That advantage alone might make her a better bet for Democrats than Sanders. Nearly five months later, however, it seems the importance of Florida has dwindled somewhat in the electoral calculus.

Despite forecasting a narrow Clinton general election win, 538’s Silver has moved the Sunshine State’s 29 electoral votes to Trump’s side of the ledger. In other words, Florida is not projected to be a tipping point state. Moreover, Clinton is behind there notwithstanding the state’s apparently friendly demographics. This means the election is likely to be decided in the rust belt states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin where Sanders would almost certainly be stronger against Trump.

The conclusion that Sanders would be a better Democratic candidate than Clinton does not rest on now months-old polls and her tumbling approval ratings. In a just-posted piece at 538, Silver notes that many of Sanders backers in the primaries are independents and very young voters who are not committed Democrats. While Trump appeals to very few Sanders voters, Green Party candidate Jill Stein and Libertarian Gary Johnson may pick up a significant percentage of them while others, Silver suggests, may stay home. Comments from disgruntled Sanders supporters on social media and in pro-Sanders email groups strongly support Silver’s thesis.

By contrast, Clinton won the Democratic primaries by dint of a huge margin over Sanders among registered Democrats. Such voters would doubtless have been disappointed if their preferred candidate had lost to the Vermont Senator But the seniors, voters of color, and coastal liberals who comprise the Clinton coalition would almost certainly have coalesced more quickly and completely behind Bernie Sanders than Bernie’s battalions have behind Clinton.

In part this is due to the sophistication of Clinton’s older voters. After suffering through the Reagan and Bush years, they recognize how badly a Republican President can screw up the country while in office and for years thereafter through retrograde Supreme Court justices. The understandable fear and loathing of Trump so many women, African-Americans, and Latinos have would also push the great majority of the Clinton coalition to back Sanders enthusiastically.

But it is also important to note that Sanders does not carry the baggage that freights Hillary Clinton. He is perceived as an honest straight-shooter. He is in no wise in thrall to corporate interests and his voting record reflects fealty to the economic interests of poor, working, and middle-class, voters. His pro-peace credentials are far more solid than Clinton’s. While Sanders does differ from most progressives on gun control, his mixed record in this area would likely help him reach a few more voters in the hunting hinterlands of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan.

The Bernie or Bust crowd should support Hillary Clinton because Donald Trump seems inclined to harm our nation and because there is reason to believe she could turn out to be a truly progressive President. She also deserves backing because she convincingly bested Bernie Sanders in a reasonably fair fight for the nomination. Unfortunately, many Bernie voters are not inclined to vote for Clinton.

Therefore, to improve their odds of winning, Clinton and Tim Kaine, along with the Democratic National Committee, and her supporters must explicitly acknowledge the essential correctness of Sanders’s policy positions and the popularity of his ideals and character. They must put aside their pique at a long-time independent backed by millennials and radicals who dared take on the Democratic establishment and challenge the candidate for whom they were ready. In short, they must commit to the Sanders agenda.

7 Responses to Bernie Would be Doing Better

Hal-Given today’s big news-Trump’s encouraging Russian espionage against Hillary-the tide may turn very quickly, especially coupled with his lack of support for NATO. The positive Democratic Convention should help, too. I know it’s tempting (and understandable) to play the “what-if” game with respect to Bernie, especially when Hillary seems to be a bit beleaguered. But I think too if this goes for long it will be unhelpful in uniting the Democrats and independents behind Hillary, which we agree is absolutely critical. The bitter feelings of some of the hard-core Bernie supporters will linger, and fester. In this very tightly contested election, we’ll need everything we’ve got to keep the scourge of Trump out of the Oval Office.

As for committing to the Sanders agenda, I think the party largely has, based on the platform. It would be unreasonable for Bernie to expect get everything he asked for, given that he didn’t win the nomination. And based upon what he’s said, I think he’s pretty happy with the platform. I give him credit for being a man of his word, even going so far as to call for acclamation, especially in the face of vocal, and sometimes nasty, opposition from some of his supporters. I’m sure he’ll be effective in bringing back at least some of the 10-15% of his supporters who say they’ll never vote for Hillary. I sure hope so, because right now, I about as worried as I’ve ever been about the outcome of an election-and that goes back a lot of years.

I’m no Trump apologist, but I don’t see that Trump is encouraging Russian hackers to do anything but release what they (and probably numerous other major players) already have hacked. Hillary made it all too easy for just about anyone to hack her email server by using her Blackberry in countries where the government (or others) easily could run a “man in the middle” attack.

Even as a private citizen in the U.S. you can’t depend on your cellphone and wireless internet connection being private – not even from city police! For a number of years the Feds have freely shared a technology called StingRay that lets local police set up a government-owned cellphone tower to pull off this attack. The only restriction the Feds give to local police is that they can only use the StingRay as a means of gathering other incriminating evidence that then can be used to make busts. The idea is to keep the StingRay on the down-low and the question of its legality from being tested in court. Thus after employing the StingRay, the police just happen to be at the right place at the right time, and in court the contraband gathered speaks for itself.

I’ve even seen the StingRay technology used in Salinas California where I live. The local newspaper even had a write-up, but it only referred to the police now having a trailer with cameras and other sophisticated electronic monitoring capabilities. The police park their trailer in the neighborhood they are monitoring. Once parked, they unfold and raise a rather high temporary antenna array plus some cameras that probably have facial recognition.

So my point here is that if the StingRay technology is already so common as to be used frequently in Salinas, Hillary as Secretary of State was certainly targeted in unfriendly foreign countries during the time she served. Don’t think this could happen? Well, the U.S. got busted for using similar technology on friendly foreign ambassadors and emissaries – some of whom were hacked while they were in their own country! Hillary was an absolute idiot re this matter, refusing to listen to anyone. What is worse is the reason she exercised such poor judgement; Hillary was preoccupied hiding the illicit activities of Bill and the pay-to-play money-laundering she and her husband were pulling off for themselves and their political cronies.

What makes me mad about Hillary’s nomination is that we are about to waste 4-8 years… more if you count what might happen to the Supreme Court (depending on when the Clintons get busted). And that is exactly what is going to happen. It is only question is when.

Currently, only rooted Android phones with Qualcomm chipsets collect the info the app needs to detect stingrays (a lot of Sony smartphones and Samsung Galaxy handsets have the right chips), but the researchers are working on supporting more chipsets/handsets.

I agree with your conclusions, Hal. And with the contrast in conventions over the last two weeks–the Democrats have done a fantastic job–I predict the newest national polls will have Hillary with a 5 to 10 point lead over Trump. Of course, like everyone else, I’ve been underestimating Donald Trump all along….

I’m sure glad Randi is back on the air. I don’t know if she’s on any terrestrial radio stations in the SF Bay Area yet, but she should be. Regarding Trump, he’s an ass, and he’s proved he is over and over, and yesterday was just another of a long line of times he’s stuck his foot in his mouth. It will continue. He will lose the election because he will continue to say stupid things over the next few months. I read a book on the British Lions 1971 tour to New Zealand, when they beat the All Blacks with 2Ws, 1L, and the last match tied. A New Zealand player by the name of Muller kept giving away penalties during the test matches by throwing punches and playing outside the laws of rugby. The Lions coach, the late Carwyn James, famously said, regarding a penalty Muller committed in the last match, giving the Lions an easy 3 point penalty kick at goal, that “Muller did something stupid again.” That’s Trump. He will say something stupid again.

Beginning ~10yrs ago, Moscow-based Kaspersky Labs tried2 damage rival competitor’s reputations by tricking their programs into classifying benign files as malicious. Per 2 former employees, some such attacks were ordered by

(Wednesday, Dec 13. 2017 12:50 AM)

KL’s co-founder Eugene Kaspersky, in part 2retaliate against rivals who he felt were aping his software rather than dev their own. KL’s engineers would take files like common critical drivers & inject bad code into them so they appeared infected. KL would then upload the doctored files anonymously2 VirusTotal flagging them as infected. Other AV engineers would then visit VT & create signatures that would flag all sim files. This often caused their AV programs 2quarantine perfectly good drivers from ppl’s computers causing system problems. http://goo.gl/fssZ1B

I guess it all boils down2 what 1 believes gives meaning to mankind’s life. To me, man will only have significance if he survives the Darwinian nature of the universe in the long term. In only a billion yrs, r sun will have brightened

(Tuesday, Dec 12. 2017 04:59 AM)

enough2 boil the oceans. If man is 2survive, it will only be cuz of his unique intelligence & ability2 fav reshape his enviro. There is nothing else particularly special about man, espec not his ability 2practice cut-throat Darwinistic behaviors. If the nat Darwinian path led2 immortal life, we would see evidence of an entire universe teaming w/life that has survived the ages. We don’t. So man must uniquely fight against the natural Darwinian order & instead build the strongest poss united society in which all individuals & earth’s life forms thrive.

4 Jeff – 1st of all u wrote that I think gov’t should buy everything 4 everybody. Obviously, that’s false. Now u write that I want gov’t 2 buy baseball tix 4 poor kids. I don’t oppose such legislation but my preference is that the City of Baltimore should condition use of its city by O’s upon an agreement by team 2 distribute free or low-cost tix to poor Baltimoreans.

For Hal – You do think the government should buy tickets to baseball games for the less fortunate. What’s the difference between that and a voucher to a restaurant? The point stands. You think the government has the authority to spend someone else’s money on whatever you deem appropriate.

For jeff linder – not everything. I don’t think the gov’t should provide people with yachts or vouchers to eat at restaurants & not at the expensive others since I would b subject 2 same taxes that I support. But it’s easier 2 attack arguments I don’t make.

The EIC has been much abused. Ppl that dont even work r propositioned by dishonest tax preparers who promise ppl they will get a tax refund if they just pay a fee. Self-Emp_Income is declared & the EIC is requested. By law, IRS pays

(Sunday, Dec 10. 2017 06:56 PM)

refunds quick, & only later it discovers the person never paid SEI taxes. The tax preparer & their fee r long gone; the person now owes IRS back the EIC. Woe 2the person that actually recvd need-based benefits (SSI or welfare) during the tax yr, as IRS records now show they had SEI they didnt declare. So welfare/SSI also want their money back, & usually such persons already at poverty level. This is the type of issue I tried 2expain2 Hal re accurate gas tax refunds. Although computerization slowly making this better, such programs rife w/fraud & bureaucratic messes.

Jeff isnt proposing a true GMI. The “earned income tax credit” he mentions already exists – IF u have low-pay job, then u may get a tax rebate. This also much like current Repub proposals 2req work 2get Medicaid. Prob socially

(Sunday, Dec 10. 2017 02:32 PM)

insulated ppl dont recog is there r many that have educational/mental/physical/economic-based issues such that they cant get/hold a job in today’s economy where workers compete w/3rd world. Sometimes ppl like Jeff will have eyes opened if something really bad happens in their lives. Gen working population is always so surprised how few services there really r when it is they that need help – but even then they often hang on2 dogma: Everybody but them (espec those dark “foreigners”) r cheaters/liars & that’s why there is nothing avail 4them when they need it.

Tweeden’s colleague John Phillips /groomed/ her 2release pic; Tweeden had no idea Phillips & Stone were hard right buddies. Arnold says Sean Hannity had wanted the photo since 2007 but she refused him & that Tweeden never wanted Franken fired. Arnold posted email purportedly showing Stone trying2 whip up story2 gossip columnists even b4 Tweeden story aired, though a pseudonym Russian nm was used & Tom has no proof email was Stone’s doing. DC & US will be vacant if we all r held 2such high stds over entire lifetime. We need Al in the Senate. http://goo.gl/oLWfA3

For halginsberg – The government spends about $1T in means tested programs. That’s about $3K per person. For illustration only:. GMI-Earned Income=Refund. That way there is no cost in benefits to working.

For halginsberg – That’s funny Hal. You think it’s someone else’s duty to spend money on things you think are important. I think you should spend your money on what you think is important. Re GMI it’s a workable solution as a replacement for all welfare programs.

For halginsberg – It’s not the federal government’s business to ensure all citizens have health care, a roof over their heads and a warm place to sleep Hal. If you know someone like in dire need why aren’t you helping them?
And yes, I support a guaranteed income.

For jeff linder – I asked u earlier how u propose to ensure all citizens have health care, a roof over their heads, and a warm place to sleep. I think u support a guaranteed minimum income. Is that correct?